An athletic coach who also worked as a security monitor at a charter school in Doral has been arrested amid allegations of inappropriate behavior with students.
Yuniesky Ramirez-Martinez, 37, was arrested Monday on charges including promoting sexual performance by a child, offenses against students by authority figures, and engaging in a sexual act with a child in custodial authority, an arrest affidavit said.
Ramirez-Martinez was employed as a part-time security monitor and athletic coach at Downtown Doral Charter Upper School.
Get South Florida local news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC South Florida newsletters.
"Extremely dangerous, this is somebody who’s victimizing students, who’s preying on them, taking advantage of students who are in a unique age in their life hormonally, dealing with the pressure of social media, the pressure of different relationships, and you are an authority figure in school, you’re supposed to coach, you’re supposed to mentor, you’re supposed to guide these young men and women into the next phase of life and you’re taking advantage of them, for us it gets no worse than that," Doral Police Chief Edwin Lopez said.
According to a warrant, Ramirez-Martinez had approached two 16-year-olds on Feb. 14 and asked them a lewd question.
He then offered to take them to a private place to "do whatever they want," which they understood meant engaging in sexual conduct, the warrant said.
Local
Ramirez-Martinez let the teens into a TV production room but one of the teens noticed a camera in the room so Ramirez-Martinez led them to an adjacent room without a camera, the warrant said.
He told the teens they could "do it" while he waited in the other room, which has a two-way window.
One of the teens then performed a sexual act on the other and video from the adjacent room showed Ramirez-Martinez recording the teens on his phone through the window, the warrant said.
Minutes later, the video showed him approaching the door and giving a thumbs up before giving one of the teens a fist bump, the warrant said.
The next day, Ramirez-Martinez approached one of the teens and told her he saw what she did with the other teen and wanted her to do it to him, the warrant said.
He told her she needs to be with someone more experienced and when she asked if he knew she was under 18, he said he knew and likes minors like her, the warrant said.
Ramirez-Martinez continued to approach the teen about performing a sex act on him but she repeatedly denied him, the warrant said.
When he threatened to tell the other teen that they were having sex if she didn't have sex with him, she reported the incidents to the school, the warrant said.
The school's principal said in a statement that once they learned of the allegations, they immediately reported them to Doral Police.
"As a result of their investigation, The Doral Police Department arrested Mr. Yunieski Ramirez who was employed as a part-time security monitor and athletic coach," the statement read. "Mr. Ramirez was immediately terminated as an employee with Downtown Doral Charter Upper School and has NOT been on school grounds since the initial report. DDCUS continues to cooperate with all law enforcement authorities and cannot comment further on the investigation."
Ramirez-Martinez was booked into jail and remained held on $40,000 bond Tuesday, records showed. Attorney information wasn't available.
At the school Tuesday, students were shocked to learn of the allegations.
"I was in class and I read the article and it just made me sick to my stomach," sophomore Daniel Gongora said.
"It’s in a way, scary, because you really never know who you can trust like that," junior Martin Rueda said.
Police said Ramirez-Martinez had only been working at the school for a couple months, and said detectives are looking into what he did with the video of the teens.
"He was hired as a security monitor and as a coach last year and within his first few weeks on the job he’s already committing several felonies, so we’re glad to put people like this in jail," Lopez said.
